ANTH 235, ENVIRONMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Culture aids humans in adapting to two kinds of
environments – social and natural.
Environmental archaeology views humans as an integral
part of the natural world, interacting with other species in
an ecological system.
See the Association for Environmental Archaeology’s
web page at: http://www.envarch.net/
Ecofacts (or biofacts): contractions of “ecological
artifacts” and “biological artifacts,” respectively
The environment is a variable, not a constant, through both
space and time and, therefore, it must be thought of in
terms of its potential impact on human societies.
HOW DO ARCHAEOLOGISTS INVESTIGATE PAST
ENVIRONMENTS?
The first step is to look at a global scale:
 evidence from oceans (sediment cores as a measure of
water temperature; changes in planktonic foraminifera
species in deep-sea ooze indicate changes in sea water
temperatures)
 oxygen isotope studies (from both deep-sea cores and
ice cores in glaciated regions); variations in the 18O/16O
ratio at one place can indicate variation in precipitation
 ancient coastlines (changes due to water locked up in
polar ice; eustasy or changes in sea-levels)
 tracing submerged land surfaces (corollary to exposed
beaches)
 ancient art (depictions of plants and animals unknown
in the region today)
STUDYING THE LANDSCAPE (a more local-scale line
of inquiry):
 glaciated landscapes (depression of the Earth’s surface,
rebound effects, erosion)
 varves (annual layers of sediments deposited in lakes
during spring thaw)
 rivers (changes in channel)
 sediments and soils (different types associated with
various conditions)
 tree-rings and climate (dendroclimatology)
RECONSTRUCTING THE PLANT ENVIRONMENT
(paleoethnobotany or archaeobotany):
Plants are overshadowed by animals in archaeology simply
because, in general, bones and teeth preserve better than
plant parts, but there are several lines of important evidence
available for archaeologists:
 pollen grains (the study of which is called palynology).
Plant pollen is incredibly durable!
The largest pollen grains in this photo are roughly 100 microns in
diameter; about the same as a human hair.
 phytoliths (“plant opals,” silica bodies that form in the
cellular systems of many plants, especially grasses,
including rice and bamboo)
 diatom analysis (diatoms are unicellular algae with
silica cell walls)
 rock varnishes (only about 1% is organic, so very large
samples are required for analysis)
 macrobotanical remains (seeds, fruits, leaves, stems,
wood, etc.)
RECONSTRUCTING THE ANIMAL ENVIRONMENT
(zooarchaeology or archaeozoology):
 microfauna (small mammals are especially sensitive to
environmental changes). Includes terrestrial and marine
mollusks, worms, insects, etc.
 macrofauna (larger animals, mostly vertebrates, both
mammals and birds). This category often constitutes the
bulk of the zooarchaeological record (see diagram
below).
 isotopic analyses of bone (to determine diet of animals;
amino acids in bone collagen to reconstruct temperature
and humidity patterns)
 other sources of information [ancient dung, called
coprolites (when fossilized) or boluses (when preserved
by desiccation, etc.); preserved trackways; tooth and
claw marks on bone and other materials; blood residues
on stone tools]
The five most common faunal species in the Middle Stone Age (MSA; red) &
Late Stone Age (LSA; blue) levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa
(based on information provided by Richard Klein & Katherine Cruz-Uribe;
“NISP” = Number of Individual Specimens, a measure of relative frequency)
RECONSTRUCTING THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT:
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Archaeologists must always consider the “non-empirical
environment”…but, it’s very hard to deal with
quantitatively!
ANALYZING HUMAN EXPLOITATION OF THE
ENVIRONMENT:
Modification of the immediate environment or living area:
 first method was controlled use of fire
(earliest reliable evidence 1.5 million years ago at
Swartkrans, South Africa; not common until after
500,000 years ago at, e.g., Zhoukoudian, China;
Torralba/Ambrona, Spain; Vertesszöllös, Hungary; etc.)
 modification of the living space
(alteration of caves, construction of dwellings)
land-use studies (part of off-site archaeology) examine
the human exploitation of the wider environment
Site Catchment Analysis: Geographic Information
Systems can be used to generate exploitation territories
from which carrying capacity can be calculated, yielding
artificial and highly problematical population estimates.
See, for example, Eamonn Baldwin’s project at:
http://www.arch-ant.bham.ac.uk/bufau/education/grottocoppice.htm
CONCLUSION:
Environmental analysis is no longer undertaken simply to
“set the scene” for particular periods of past human
activity.
Archaeology now strives to understand former
environments in order to assess the key variables that might
have influenced the operation of cultural systems.
The goal of environmental archaeology is not to prove the
validity of environmental determinism (the proposition
that natural environmental change alone causes culture
change), but rather to understand the complex web of
articulations that describe human-environmental
interactions over time (i.e., diachronically).